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had achieved their goal and become immortal because you're talking about past efforts. I think the second paragraph should be in subjunctive, which is what you put in your suggested c...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16136 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16136 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
> > **had** achieved their goal and **become** immortal because you're talking about past efforts. I think the second paragraph should be in [subjunctive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive), which is what you put in your suggested corrections. The narrator is positing a hypothetical future, not a real or hypothetical past.